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I’m constantly changing the look of my blog because I find myself bored and uninspired of the same old, same old. I want my blog to be exciting and fun and I want the material to interesting–something for everyone.

My friend has encouraged me to spice things up with this blog using other formats of communication. I usually find myself making excuses for not following his suggestions, but I think I’m ready to do something new. I know I have good ideas in my brain, but I have trouble getting them out.

My question is, what would you like to see more of?:

Vlogs (videos of me talking about things that I would normally be writing about)

Podcasts (essentially a radio show with me and a couple of my friends)

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 180,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 3 years for that many people to see it. Your blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!

I usually don’t do posts where I just ramble about what’s going on in my life. Mostly because it would consist of me talking about how I can’t feel my legs because I’ve been laying in bed for the past 6 hours. However, some new and interesting things have happened to me in the last week or two that might actually fill up a blog without me having to mention what I ate.

My mom and I decided to travel the world and go to Nashville to check out real estate. Why do they call it that? Couldn’t they just call it estates? Like, obviously they’re real. No one would look at fake estates. We spent a lot of time relaxing at our hotel mostly because it was awesome. The Gaylord Opryland reminded me of a Vegas hotel; there was so much to do inside the building, that you didn’t really have to leave to have a good time. It was decorated with sparkly Christmas lights and big wreaths.

I have two qualms about The Gaylord Opryland. The first one is having to say the name Gaylord. The second one is the word Opry. Where did the Grand Ole Opry get it’s name? I like to think the name originated when opera singers would travel to the south to perform and Tennessee natives would say, “Imma go see the dern Opry to-nite!”

My guess was actually kind of close. It does have to to with opera but I’m too lazy to read the paragraph that wikipedia has on it.

After our adventures there, we went onto Austin, TX. You know the saying, “Keep Austin Weird”? Well, I think Austin will always be weird whether or not people try to keep it that way. There are all walks of life there. Which is good. Prime people watching. While we were there we looked at some estates and met up with some of my mom’s cousins. It’s funny because whenever my mom meets up with them her southern drawl comes out and they all talk about how they’re “blood”.

While we were there we saw Anna Karenina at this cute theater called the Violet Crown. It was rad because it also served as a lounge/bar so you could really make a night of seeing a movie. The movie itself was pretty good.

After that we got fro-yo because why the hell not? It was yum but I couldn’t tell if our cashier was a boy or a girl for real. It was like, the hardest. I think she was a girl. Very Boys Don’t Cry. She was keeping Austin weird. She had also never heard of Anna Karenina.

For some reason I’m really attracted to Hil Swank in this movie. She looks better as a boy. There I said it.

Perhaps the best part of our trip to Texas was seeing our blogger friend Jell Jell! You can read all about our meetup here. I was on a blogging high after that and suggested that we do a blog tour and force meetups with every blogger we know.

After that, our trip ended and my mom and I went our separate ways. It was good seeing her and spending some quality mother/daughter time together. Don’t worry, we’ll be reunited at Christmas and I’ll get to show my brother around Victoria for the first time. Lots of special moments.

I’ve never participated in a guest post before. That is, until today. My friend Abby started blogging and she asked me if I wanted to guest post on her blog. I mainly agreed for the attention that I would get and for the new experience. And because I love Abby. She’s one of the few people who actually thinks I’m funny. So she obviously has good taste. And I can proudly say that she’s the only person that has seen me do the splits in skis, tumbling down the slopes.

If you want to read my post about our favorite city, Chicago, definitely do! And if you don’t want to read it, I understand. Reading is such hard work.

I’ve also never had someone guest post on my blog. The reason for that is mostly because my blog is sacred. But be on the lookout for a guest post from Abby in the future. It’s most likely going to be about our adventures skiing in Utah. Or about her just being genuinely better at everything and me failing at most things.

I wrote about Canadian Thanksgiving last year and I didn’t hold back on the insults. This year, I’m going to take some time to write about what I’m grateful for. Weird, I know. We can pretend that we’re sitting around the table saying what we’re thankful for except that it’s all about what I’m thankful for and you’re not really a part of it.

My family. They are the coolest. Most of you know mi madre. She’s pretty much WordPress famous. But not the kind of WordPress famous where you get Freshly Pressed. All the cool people haven’t been Freshly Pressed. It’s true! If you haven’t been Freshly Pressed, you must be pretty cool. And offensive. My brother is also cool. He’s a way better writer than I am. I don’t know why he doesn’t blog more. Or at all. And my dad is also, surprisingly, very cool. He does all the things. Each member of my family is located somewhere different, but we’re all still a perfect unit. I am pretty lucky that way.

Is it just me or is the black kid being segregated?

My husband. I still think it’s weird that I have a husband. It’s almost like I’m old or something. Without my husband I would be super sad. I tried being without him once after I met him and I didn’t like it one bit. He’s a hard worker and a kind fellow that takes care of me. It’s a big job, you know, taking care of me.

My friends. I really like my little groups of friends that I have all over the world. I am drawn to people that I don’t have to spend time with 24/7. I like being able to pick up right where I left off. My friends from Chicago were always so cool with me living in England and only seeing me during the holidays. I never felt pressure to stay anchored to one place. I also like that my friends don’t take me too seriously and ignore me when I say dumb things and laugh at all of my jokes. I never wanted to have the most friends. I just wanted to have a few good ones.

Blogging. Blogging has opened up so much of the world to me. It’s weird because I never would’ve thought that writing could lead to friendships and learning and laughing. But I have so many people that can see who I truly am on here even when I say dumb things and offend everyone on the internet.

Diet Pepsi: You might be wondering why this is on my list. Diet Pepsi has been a part of my life since I can remember. Actually, I think my dad put some in my bottle once. So technically, it’ss been a part of my life since I can’t remember.

Laughing. Laughing and making people laugh are two of my favorite things ever. You can’t buy laughter. You can fake it, but true, genuine laughter is euphoric. I love being able to make any situation, no matter how serious or painful, funny. It’s a gift, really.

The world has changed incredibly in the span of twenty years. When I was little, my family didn’t have a computer. I don’t remember having one until I was at least 9. Even then I don’t think I ever went “online”. The only activity that I did on the computer was typing my name over and over again in different fonts. I still do that on occasion.

Now it seems that I can’t go a day without being online. I have to check my “stuff” which consists of email, twitter, blogs, facebook, tumblr, pinterest…the list goes on. Of course there are times when I’m away and can’t check my stuff. Those are the times when I’m sitting in a corner and rocking myself back and forth.

One might look at this scenario and think my online life is unhealthy. Fortunately, I’m one of the light cases. I know for a fact that teenagers stay online for hours and hours on end. Even if they aren’t physically at a computer, they can still go online with their phones. I know I’m painting an extreme picture, but the internet, despite being a big time-waster, is actually an amazing thing.

We are able to connect with people around the world without leaving our homes (or beds…in my case). We are able to meet friends, share stories, and fall in love online. Some would even say it’s easier to meet people online because no one is judging you by your appearance, just by what you say.

Personally, I am more relaxed when I’m talking to people online than in real-life. Online, you can choose to respond to a conversation whenever and however you want to. You can take the time to think about what you want to say before your say it. You can eloquently word your input instead of trying to come up with the right words in your head. Everything is smoother and thought out. We can really be our best selves online for that reason.

Will we turn into drones that don’t know how to talk in the future? Possibly. Will we go blind from the light of our computers constantly being shone into our eyes? Most likely. But we’ll have many more acquaintances than we ever could have met in our own day to day lives. We can relate to others and realize that others can relate to us. We can comfort and be comforted. We can laugh and share thought-provoking stories. And that might be worth something in the long run.